Author: tippingpoint2020s

The following comment and analysis by General Sir Richard Barrons, Commander Joint Forces Command (2013-2016), now Co-Chairman of Universal Defence & Security Solutions, is published here too by the Global Security Forum of which General Barrons is an Advisory Board member. The Surveillance Pandemic All eyes are focused on the extraordinary effects of the COVID-19 …

Most people talk about ‘soft power’ as somehow the opposite of military or coercive ‘hard power’. But it is much more complex than that. Britain has relied on its subtle soft power capabilities for a long time. But if it does not think more carefully about it very soon, there is a danger that complacency …

The concept of ‘Soft Power’ will be increasingly important to all European ‘middle powers’, and not least to Britain, in the troubled years to come, as the world deals with the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the increasingly antagonistic relations between the major powers. The western liberal democracies will have to rely …

The following article was first published here by the RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) on Monday 19 May 2020. A scientific gold rush is underway for the first Covid-19 vaccine but, as the world is anxious and impatient for its arrival, medical protectionism and vaccine nationalism could rise considerably if unchecked. Outwardly, most governments recognise …

By Michael Clarke It’s inevitable that the government’s ‘Integrated Review’ of external relations has gone on hold during the COVID-19 crisis, not least because the international environment is being changed, perhaps fundamentally, by it. Michael Clarke addresses the government’s key challenge – to work out the difference between those existing trends that are being exacerbated …